We were all very disappointed here at SciFiNow when Bryan Fuller and Michael Green left American Gods after its stellar first season over budget disputes, but we resolved to make the best of it and wait and see what was in store for Shadow, Mr Wednesday and company in Season Two. However, a new report suggests that things have got somewhat…difficult on the set of the Starz show.
THR‘s lengthy article claims that new showrunner Jesse Alexander has been “asked to stop working” on the show, or “fired but not fired.” The reasons given include serious delays over the scripts, which have led to reshoots, pick-ups and a recent hiatus, disagreements between cable company Starz and production company Fremantle, author Neil Gaiman’s reported increased involvement, and actor unhappiness (which the report claims includes doing their own rewrites, and “screaming matches” between Ian McShane and Alexander). Fuller and Green had written six scripts before being fired, and the decision to start Season Two from scratch sounds like it might have been an…ambitious one.
There’s also reportedly a lot of disagreement over the look and tone of the show, as Starz is said to be unhappy that it’s moving away from the series that Fuller and Green concocted towards something more “conventional.” It’s also interesting to note complaints of it looking “cheap” given that the budgets on the first season seem to have been one of the primary sources of the decision to fire the original team.
Alexander said ‘”We are all working very hard to make American Gods the series that its fans want and deserve,” in a statement to THR, a sentiment which is echoed in the statements from Starz and Fremantle in the article without actually addressing whether any of the report is true or not.
If the report is true, it’s a pretty upsetting update on a show we are really rooting for. The source material is obviously amazing, the cast is incredible, and even though we were fully, five-star on board with the first season, we’re excited to see what the new creative team has come up with. Fingers crossed that it’s worth the worry and the wait.
American Gods returns in 2019. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
